We got to Valle Vista, I got out of the car and walked over to my ex's.  He got out of his and walked to mine.  He started yelling something at Joshua.  I knew this wasn't going to be productive, but was not feeling the maternal need to come to his defense.  Something was being screamed about being a scientist and that was going to make since soon enough.  I approached my ex's new wife, the mother of the girl in the videos.  My heart broke for her and I just started to apologize feeling so responsible for what my son had done.  I wasn't sure if she would start yelling at me or him, but she just hugged me.  We got inside, told the lady at the desk we had an appointment and I was given the paper work to fill out.  Joshua plopped himself down on a couch and started laughing at the Adam Sandler movie that was playing on the TV in the lobby.  His father and I were both so angry at him and amazed at his utter lack of regard for the situation.  My hands shook so hard I could hardly fill out he forms legibly.  We told him to get up and sit on a couch facing away from the television.  He kept straining his eyes to catch a glimpse of the screen and snickering at the jokes he heard.  It was all I could do to keep from slapping him across the face.  How dare he act like life for all of us hadn't just imploded.  And I didn't even know the half of it.

The intake coordinator brought us back and asked us why we were there.  I told her about the videos trying to give as much detail as I could without traumatizing Cindy's parents.  I gave the recent history of the photos of women going to the bathroom and him urinating on blankets and clothes.  Told her of the 2 toads and 1 bunny he had killed and of me walking in on him choking our dog.  That's when his father spoke up.  The animal killings had continued around 5 he could recall.  And the very weekend those videos were shot, he had pulled the skin off of a live frog.  That is where the scientist comment came into play....his father telling him that it was only OK to do that if he was a scientist.....his father is an idiot.  All of this being told while Joshua sat in the room with, no tears being shed, no remorseful pleas, his cheeks didn't even flush from embarrassment.  Knowing I had specifically asked him about wanting to hurt other animals not 24 hours before and he lied to my face......what else was he capable of?  I began recounting all the odd behaviors, especially the last month or two, especially those involving my daughter.  The day of the engagement party he knocked our bedroom door around 8am, he said my daughter was crying and he had to calm her down.  Her room is not 10 feet from ours, the monitor was on, I sleep light as a feather.  She was not crying.  What the hell was he doing in her room?  I felt so sick.

The woman asked to speak with Joshua alone, my ex and his wife, and myself.  She seemed very sympathetic and alarmed.  Once she was done speaking with all of us she had to call the nurse practitioner on call for orders.  She asked me if I was indeed looking for inpatient treatment, and if there had been any doubt before it was all gone now.  I just found out my son had peeled the skin off of a live animal....something had to be done.  As she lead us back to the waiting room I assumed it was a foregone conclusion that he would be admitted.  I began to remember what treatment had been like for the kids here, the group therapy, the school day....all of which I had been a part of in the past.  Joshua knew what was being discussed, hell I had him pack his own bag, so you think that the time in the waiting room, waiting for this woman to tell us his fate he would be forlorn, distraught.  No, he was flipping through magazines, laughing at the comics he could find.

After 30 minutes or so the woman reappeared and asked to speak with my husband and myself, presumably to fill out the admissions paperwork.  To our shock and horror, he would not be admitted.  He wasn't suicidal, homicidal, or psychotic enough for admission.  The woman was truly sorry, if it was up to her....but of course it wasn't.  She could only give us some numbers of outpatient facilities that may be able to get him an appointment in the next few weeks, tell us to hide the weapons and put alarms on our doors, and until that could be done, lock him in his room.  That was the best they could offer.  The disbelief of this, of the whole day was more than I could take and I nearly passed out sitting in my chair.  She asked if I felt safe taking him home and of course I didn't, so she gave me the number of a runaway shelter that would keep him overnight.  I could not believe, still can't believe this is happening.

My ex's wife worked at a hotel at the time and they would often stay there.  Either they got a discount or would just choose a room to squat in when living in his mother's house with up to ten people at a time wore thin.  My ex had the next 2 days off of work so he said he would take him to the hotel and hopefully we would hear from the police and child protective services very soon.  Surly that would be the way to get help for us.  As the three adults discussed these plans, Joshua walked out to his father's car and began skipping around it.  This was children of the corn creepy.  The boy didn't skip, this whole day and night should of rocked him to his core, made him question everything about himself.  It should of made him as miserably sick as the rest of us....but instead he complained about being hungry and started skipping.

I called my husband when I started the hour plus drive home and put enough words together to tell him what happened, which was really nothing.  I grabbed an empty fast food cup from the back seat and vomited violently into it.  When I got home I vomited some more.  I had found our on my birthday just weeks before that I was pregnant, but I hadn't felt the morning sickness yet.  I could not be sure if the hormones had finally built up enough to cause the nausea.  Well I knew that wasn't it.  The videos Joshua had made kept replaying in my mind, only to be trumped out by the image of him skinning and animal alive.  What the hell just happened to my son, my family, my life.  When I finally reached my husband I crawled on top of him, sobbed, and shook so hard that my teeth were chattering.  I think I shook like that for the first 2 weeks at least.